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Ahmos Zu-Bolton
Ahmos Zu-Bolton II (October 21, 1948 - March 8, 2005)Ahmos Zu-Bolton, Beltway Poetry Quartely. Web, Dec. 15, 2018. The Oxford Companion to African-American Literature gives his birthdate as October 21, 1935. However, that would have made him 29 when he 1st attended LSU, and in his 30's when he served in the military. was an African-American poet, literary editor, small press publisher, teacher, and organizer of cultural events. Life Zu-Bolton was born in Poplarville, Mississippi, and grew up in DeRidder, Louisiana, near the Texas border.Ahmos Zu-Bolton II, Mississippi Writers Page. Web, Feb. 28, 2019. In 1965 he received a scholarship to Louisiana State University, being among the class of black students who integrated the university that year. His college studies were interrupted by military service as a medic in Vietnam. He graduated from California State Polytechnic University in 1971. In 1970, he founded Energy West Literary Works in Los Angeles, which published Energy West Poetry Journal and Shoreline Magazine. In 1972, he moved the operation to the south, changing the name to Energy BlackSouth Press, and launched HooDoo Magazine, a magazine devoted to African-American activism and arts. Also in 1972, he organized The Witchdoctor Theater, a poetry-music-drama group. In 1973, he opened the Up-South office of Energy BlackSouth in Washington D.C.and became co-editor of Black Box, an innovative poetry magazine issued on cassette, along with Alan Austin and Etheridge Knight. From 1973 to 1976 he worked for the Humanities Resources Center, or African-American Resources Center, of Howard University in Washington, D.C.. There he came into contact with Stephen E. Henderson, E. Ethelbert Miller, and other writers, who encouraged him to publish HooDoo.Ahmos Zu-Bolton II, Concise Oxford Companion to African-American Literature, 2001, 455. ISBN 978-0-19-513883-2. Answers.com, Web, Feb. 28, 2019. In 1975 he published a collection of poems, A Niggered Amen, and co-edited Synergy D.C. Anthology. In 1976 he moved his company to Houston, and then to Galveston, Texas, renaming it Energy Earth Communications, Inc., and reorganizing it as a small press distribution network. Zu-Bolton founded Hoo-Doo, , published A Niggered Amen: Poems, and co-edited Synergy D.C. Anthology, in 1975. Between 1977 to 1980 he also organized a series of HooDoo Festivals, which presented poets and musicians in New Orleans, Galveston, Austin, Houston, and other cities. During the same period Zu-Bolton was also a leading figure in the Southern Black Cultural Alliance (a network of writers, musicians, literary journals, and theater groups that promoted the ideas of the Black Arts movement). In 1983, he moved to New Orleans where he opened the Copastetic Community Book Center, which served both the literary and community theater movements. Ror its 10 years of existence, until 1992, the bookstore was an active venue for literary events, presenting plays, poetry readings, children's programs, and workshops for young writers. While living in New Orleans he taught English, African-American studies, and creative writing classes at Xavier University, Tulane University, and Delgado Community College. He was visiting writer in residence at University of Missouri.Lynita F. Jones, "Candelight Vigil for Ahmos Zu-Bolton", ChickenBones: A Journal. Web. He was also a journalist, contributing articles to the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Louisiana Weekly. Zu-Bolton also wrote several plays, including The Widow Paris: A folklore of Marie Laveau, The Funeral, Family Reunion, and The Break-In.Ahmos-Zu Bolton: A writer and teacher, African-American Registry. Web, Feb. 28, 2019. He died March 8, 2005, at Howard University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., of cancer. Poet In Residence "I linger here for the mountains the waters, and the shadows only … this tribe ain’t mine." -Ahmos Zu-Bolton Zu-Bolton was an African-American Beat poet of the 1970s who touched lives as a “poet” in the classrooms of Virginia, Georgia and Texas. He was instrumental to college campuses adding new bodies of thought about poetry and color, as a writer of poetry collections such as Fishpond Australia, Ain't No Spring Chicken, Hoo-Doo, and A Niggered Amen, which was published December 1, 1975. Ahmos Zu-Bolton was Resident Poet at Carver High School in Columbus, Georgia in the spring of 1976, where he met, taught and was a major influence on the life and poetry of Will Dockery, and, the next year, Grace Cavalieri. Cavalieri: "In 1977 he took my first full-length poetry book Body Fluids for distribution and sent me the first check I ever received for poetry. I think it was $7.00 or $8.00. He reached across race to include me. Connections. Interconnectedness is more like it."Grace Cavalieri, "Ahmos Zu-Bolton’s Poetry of Invention," Beltway Poetry Quarterly, 13:4 (Fall 2012). Web, Dec. 20, 2018. In Washington, D.C., Ethelbert Miller became his historian. Zu-Bolton was co-director to Ethelbert Miller's Directorship of the Afro American Resource Center at Howard University; and, there still exists in D.C. a community of poets who will always revere and love him. He teamed up with artists in New Orleans, Galveston, Austin and Houston to produce his HooDoo Festivals. While living in New Orleans he taught English, African American Studies and Creative Writing at Xavier University, Tulane University and Delgado Community College. He was Visiting Writer in Residence at University of Missouri. When Zu Bolton died in 2005, that college held a candlelight vigil. And, he connected with the old as well as the young: he and his wife, poet Harryette Mullen, worked with senior citizens in 1978, teaching and encouraging their life stories. Writing Concise Oxford Companion to African-American Literature: "Zu-Bolton's free verse poems — collected in A Niggered Amen (1975) — employ African American vernacular speech and are sometimes cast in the form of dramatic monologues or modeled on the sermonic tradition. These works reflect the poet's many varied experiences, ranging from cutting sugarcane on Gulf Coast plantations to playing professional baseball for the Shreveport Twins of the American Negro Baseball League in the early 1950s." Grace Cavalieri: "His work is his version of history. He knew his life and experience were too important to leave to other people. He created worlds and populated them with people to act out the blood and pulse of being black in America." His book Ain’t No Spring Chicken is a selection of poems published by the Voice Foundation in 1998. "There is a cure for the Blues" (excerpt) "There is a cure for the Blues ... A white cabbie says there ain’t never been no/great colored poets ... and I think to myself man this cat is hip/ smooth, there’s truth in his meter, so I sez to him I say, hey man, how come a professor like you is driving a cab?" -Ahmos Zu-Bolton, from "Taxicab Blues". A Niggered Amen, Zu-Bolton's masterpiece The poetry collection is in Epic poetry form with 4 sections: The Books of X, Y, Z and A (the alpha and omega?). Zu-Bolton’s main characters are Blackjack Moses and Livewire Davis, starting with Blackjack Moses returning from Vietnam... "he has no weapon/ (he threw away his gun/ when he threw away/ his bible." In "spacedream struggle" he writes, "I fought the Christians today. / Me and my man Jesus, who is/ on this mission with me,/ and who would have me/ turn the other cheek/ nigger." The words "Me" and "Jesus,". Later in the poem cycle "the fool (an excerpt from the diary of blackjack moses)" is a 6-page poem: "the fool/ you know him/ he once told you the secrets/ of his life/ there’s a file on him/ at the pentagon/ he ain’t no myth/ him for-real baby…" And "the fool lies down/ with these ancient ones./…they teach him/ the holy song & dance,/ they give him cups/ of his own blood/ to drink// they teach him to eat/ of his own flesh…" And so it goes. Phrases and Keywords from the poetry collection Title A Niggered Amen: Poems Author Ahmos Zu-Bolton Publisher Solo Press, 1975 Original from the University of California Digitized Apr 25, 2008 Length 48 pages Subjects Poetry › General Poetry / General abstract ain't alley baby bebop bible blackjack moses blackjack told BOOK bout burn castle chant cheek church coming composes a history couldnot crack daddy-o-blues play dance dancers darkness dawn dead-end defense deja diary dick Dreamplace dreams escape eternal nigger face fast father fire & love fist fool spends fool the fool frown ghetto hated hides hungup inside Jesus jive ju-ju know swingers light Livewire Davis Livewire's mama mama mirror moons mother move myth never Neverdie NIGGERED AMEN night old place ollie street otherworlds poem that refused poet seeking poetry preacher psychiatrist rage rebirth reflection rhyme ritual run he runs run run sang scream screw seeking a poem shadows shoot sister blues sleep slum song spilling spin spirit star STUMBLING THRU sugarcane sweat tangents teach theatre threw thru blue eyes thru my window tribe turn victory vision voice walls womb Recognition Yusef Komunyakaa included Zu-Bolton's poem "Reading the Bones: a Blackjack Moses nightmare" (originally printed in American Poetry Review) in The Best American Poetry 2003. Publications Poetry *''A Niggered Amen: Poems''. San Louis Obispo, CA: Solo Press, 1975. *''Featuring Four Third-World Poets'' (by Peter Blue Cloud, William Oandasan, Ahmos Zu-Bolton, & Ricardo Sánchez. Laguna, NM: A Press / Austin, TX: Relampago Books, 1979. *''Ain't No Spring Chicken: Selected poems''. New Orleans, LA: Voice Foundation, 1998. ISBN 978-0-9668063-0-4 *''1946: A poem''. Berkeley, CA: Ishmael Reed Publishing, 2002. ISBN 978-0-918408-34-1 Edited *''HooDoo 1'' (edited with Carolyn Chew). DeRidder, LA: Energy BlackSouth Press, 1972. *''Synergy: An anthology of Washington D.C. Blackpoetry'' (edited with E. Ethelbert Miller). Houston, TX, & Washington, DC: Energy BlackSouth Press, 1975. *''HooDoo 4''. Houston, TX: Energy BlackSouth Press, 1975. *''HooDoo 6½'' (edited with Lorenzo Thomas & Adesanya Alakoye). DeRidder, LA: Energy Earth Communications, 1978. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Ahmos Zu-Bolton, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Mar. 7, 2014. See also *List of U.S. poets References *Quincy Troupe, ed., Giant Talk: An Anthology of Third World Writings, Vintage Books, 1975. *Turdier Harris and Thadious M. Davis, eds., Afro-American Poets Since 1955, University of Michigan Press, 1985. *Dorothy Abbott, ed., Mississippi Writers: Reflections of Childhood and Youth, Vol. III: Poetry, University Press of Mississippi, 1988. *John Oliver Killens and Jerry W. Ward, eds., Black Southern Voices: An Anthology, Plume, 1992. *Rudy Lewis, "Ahmos Zu Bolton, HooDoo Poet, Opened a Channel to the Ancestors," ChickenBones Journal, March 2005. *E. Ethelbert Miller, "In Search of the Hoo-Doo Man: Reconstructing Ahmos Zu-Bolton," Drumvoices Review, Volume 14, Issue 1/2, Spring-Fall 2006. *Kim Roberts & Dan Vera, eds., DC Writers' Homes, "Ahmos Zu-Bolton II," 2011. Notes External links ;Poems *"Spacedream Struggle" *"Alexandria Revisited: What Would Have Become?" *Ahmos Zu-Bolton II in Black American Literature (2 poems) *Testimonials and poem ("A Crucifix for De Ridder") at Chicken Bones: an online journal ;Books *Ahomos Zu-Bolton at Amazon.com *Black Magnolias - Psychedelic Literature Home ;About *Ahmos Zu-Bolton II at Mississippi Writers Page *Ahmos Zubolton II in the Oxford Companion to African-American Literature *Ahmos Zu-Bolton II: A writer and teacher at African-American Registry *Candlelight Vigil for Ahmos Zu-Bolton at Chicken Bones *"Ahmos Zu-Bolton's Poetry of Invention" at Beltway Poetry Quarterly *http://docshare.tips/civil-rights_584e7fa9b6d87faea78b5240.html Civil Rights - DocShare.tips Category:1935 births Category:2005 deaths Category:People from Poplarville, Mississippi Category:African-American poets Category:American military personnel of the Vietnam War Category:20th-century poets Category:American poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets